Sunday, November 30, 2014

I
will start off with saying what happened Friday. We get calls for the
areas getting flushed (both missionaries taken out) on Friday, and we
were talking with Elder Anderson on the phone in the evening (like always)
and we told him that we got the flush call, completely jokingly to try
to convince him that we were flushed, but like a minute after saying
that, Elder Williams, one of our AP's, called. Elder Heath was talking
on the phone at the time and just heard a beep and when he looked, he
thought, "Oh crap, we actually are getting flushed," and showed me the
phone. We said bye to Elder Anderson, then answered Elder Williams'
phone call, and he flushed the toilet (typical AP way of flushing a
companionship). He then told us that our area is switching to an
Hermanas area, so we are packing up and stuff.

I
have loved serving here and seeing it grow, along with the people in
the area. Sadly, we weren't able to baptize here, but I feel we made an
impact on a lot of the less-active members here in the area, as well as
some of the other people that we have taught. This week we were unable
to see many of the people we planned to see, mainly because appointments
kept getting cancelled. We both love the ward here and have seen so
many members grow in their desire to serve the Lord. Even though we both
wish we could stay longer, we know the change is necessary, especially
with some sister missionaries coming into the area. Many of the people
we visit are hard to visit because we need a man in the house and either
they live alone or the man that lives there works late. We feel like it
will do the area a lot of good by having the sister missionaries here,
which will allow for more teaching and growth, and we feel like they
will be able to baptize this next transfer, and the following one as
well.

This week we were a little disappointed
by the numbers and we really do feel like we did more than they say.
Like I mentioned before, lessons kept getting cancelled, so we contacted
a lot, as a result God blessed us with the opportunity to teach 2 new
people as well as the opportunity to teach another one of our
investigators again. We ended up teaching Gumaro, and we actually ended
up walking up to his door to find him talking with 2 men from the
Catholic church. We got to talk to him and testify of the restoration
while the men were still there. When the men left, he invited us to sit
down to talk. We got to just talk about the purpose of us being there,
and we found out his concerns about already having been baptized and not
understanding why it would be necessary to be baptized again. We got to
share some scriptures about the authority of the priesthood and we
testified, but mainly we listened to him, let him say what he was
feeling and thinking. I feel like just doing that helped him open his
mind more and he is going to read the Restoration pamphlet and pray
about if it is true.

I am really excited to
move on to my next area and see what it has in store. I know that
wherever it is, I am needed there and I will be able to help the area
grow. I honestly can say that I am tired of not baptizing and I am
determined to do so this next transfer, so look out world, here comes
the gospel!

Here's some crazy pictures that we've enjoyed taking:

Larger than life--Gotta love these Reese's!~ Yum!

So huge-- It was trying to get me!

The work continues even in the rain...we got soaked, but missionary life is good!

This week was pretty good, but it was difficult and
disappointing at the same time. We had multiple member present lessons on the calendar, but they somehow fell through--either the member would
have to cancel, or the investigator had to cancel, sometimes both. We
were disappointed by that, but we feel like we were doing our part.

I feel like the
highlight of my week was Friday during Zone Meeting, we got to learn
about becoming the 4th Missionary. I feel like my main problem or thing
that holds me back from being that missionary is my own diligence. I
feel like my desires are in the right place and that I have the faith to
move forward, but I still have that desire to see where I'm going. We
sang the song "Lead Thou Me On" and it really hit me, and I really feel
like it applies to me, and I want to say to the Lord "lead Thou me on." I
don't know what was holding me back, but now I feel like I have that
renewed hope and desire to do so and I know that all will go well.

A
few weeks ago, I felt the need to be a little bolder with the
less-active members in our area because I have been studying about the
gospel of Jesus Christ and I have found how much we truly need to do the
simple things to be able to return to God. I shared my sincere feelings
and I told them how it is and will be without beating around the bush,
and we have seen results from that. Three of the less-active members
from our area have come to church the last couple of weeks, and the have
been reading the scriptures more often. We are still working with them
to keep them active, but I am glad we have been able to help them so
far, and their respect for us has grown so much.

I
am so glad to be serving in this area of the mission, and I hope I can
help these people progress more towards having a thriving testimony of
Jesus Christ. We recently had an investigator from a part-member family
accept a baptismal date for the 13th of December, so we are working with
him to help him grow his faith and testimony, as well as that of his
wife, who is a member, so they will come to church and do what is
necessary to know what is true.

Recently,
something that has been on my mind was that Oscar and Ana H
weren't coming to church and it seems like the elders in their area
don't really care that much about them... Just a reminder, Oscar is the
guy that Elder Galvez and I taught back 11 months ago and Oscar was
baptized 2 weeks after I left, I think it was the 15th of February. It
was eating me on the inside not seeing them at church anymore and never
hearing the other elders talk about them, and I have wanted to stop by
to set up a dinner or something with them so I could visit them while I
am still in the area. While at church yesterday, I had the feeling that
we should go over there to do exactly that, especially because I feel
like I will be leaving this next week for transfers. We went over there,
and they were home! Oscar has changed jobs 2 times since I left the
area and now he works 13 days and then gets 1 day off, but he didn't
work this weekend. I got to catch up with them a little, and I got to
meet their new baby boy. Their little boy, Oscar, now is 2 years old and
still remembered me apparently from before, but now he walks and runs
around, and stuff, he makes me think of my nieces and nephews. Their new
baby boy is named Osiel Oscar Herrera, and is as cute as ever. I am so
glad that I got to play a role in their lives, I feel so blessed to know
them and I am so glad they remember me! We are going to do a dinner
with them this week and Ana's older kids from her first husband are
going to be there as well, which makes me more excited because I got
close to them as well. That visit might not have been 100 percent
obedient, but I got permission from Elder Anderson to visit them, and I
felt like it was inspiration from God because the other elders couldn't
ever catch them at home, but the one time I go, they were home. I was also able to get Oscar's schedule for work, so now the other elders can visit them to
make sure they make it to the temple to be sealed. Frankly, I felt like
it was necessary to remind them of their potential, seeing as Elder
Galvez and I instilled in them their true potential in the first place.

I love you guys, and please pray for the people we are teaching:

Jorge:
that he will remember his duties as a father, as well as accept a
baptismal date because he isn't living with Suyapa anymore

Efrain: that he will be able to continue forward with faith toward his bap. date of 12/13

I was just thinking of how fast the time is flying. It feels like
it wasn't too long ago that I got moved to West Lake Houston as my third
area, but now that I think about it, that was just more than 9 months
ago. I now only have that much time left on the mission, 9 months.

This
week was good, we had some troubles getting in contact with some of our
investigators, but regardless, we still had a lot of success. Our week
was a little strange because we tried to change our approach in the
area; and it seems to be going well. We are trying to do better at
receiving and contacting referrals, as well as contacting more people
each day because we have been really bad at doing that consistently. We
found a way to make more of a game out of it so we have more incentive
to do what is necessary and to remind us of what we need to do. We have
already seen some of the success from doing this. The game is that one
of us has a golf ball in their pocket, which gets kind of annoying, but
when they ask someone for a referral, they get to take it out of their
pocket and give it to the other person. Then whoever has the golf ball
at the end of the day gets a point marked against them, then at the end
of the week we'll total the points and whoever has the most points has
to buy the other ice cream or something. We have already seen it work
because the day that we started it and that we were creating the rules,
we remembered to ask everyone for referrals.

We
saw a few miracles as well through talking with everyone, especially on
Friday night, after Zone Conference. Our 8pm appointment cancelled on
us, so we went to try some other investigators that we weren't able to
see all week, but they weren't home. We quickly thought of some people
that were close-by that we could try, and we started on our way over,
while riding our bikes from the house of the people we just tried, we
passed by a group of guys that were talking outside by their truck and
we talked with them. We ended up having a short lesson with them about
the Plan of Salvation, and they continually asked questions. Eventually,
they had to leave, but they said we could come back a different day,
and it seems like they really have a lot of interest in learning more
about this message.

This week we also had Zone
Conference, so our Zone and another Zone met up for this conference with
President and Sister Drake and the AP's. We had to get there at 6:45am,
so we had to wake up at 5am, wow I am glad I had early morning
seminary, but that lasted until 4pm, and we weren't able to leave until
about 4:45pm... It was a really good meeting, but I had a really bad
headache getting out of it because they had to re-finish the gym floor
and they didn't air it out, so basically I didn't feel well once we got out. I started to get a migraine, so I popped the medicine and
we went on with the day, and I luckily felt better because I caught it
early enough.

Zone Conference- area picture

But there is really good news that we found out at Zone
Conference! You know how I told you about Bertha, our investigator who
is friends with a few members and has come to church a ton of times
without having met with the missionaries, she talked with her friend
that we had over with us when we taught her for the first time, and told
her before she left for Mexico, that she was going to her own church
once more. She said that she was going so she could say goodbye, she has
decided that she wants to join our church. So, we just have to wait for
her to get home from Mexico, and hopefully she will be able to be
baptized before she goes to Pennsylvania for the rest of the year.

Then
Saturday we had a service project at 8am, so we had to leave by 7:30
and we still wanted to exercise, so we woke up at 6am. The service was
fun, but I ended up standing outside in the sun for 2.5 hours helping
out with a 5k run. Then when the 5k was over, we got to go over and get
our free flu shots from the same event. So, yes mom, I got my flu shot.
:P

That is basically all of the interesting
stuff that happened this week, but I should hopefully have more
interesting stuff to tell you about next week.

This week felt really long because so many different
things happened. On Monday evening I started getting a migraine and
fought it long enough to get back to our apartment at almost 9pm, but I
wasn't there very long before I got picked up to go on an Exchange with
Elder Reed in Broadway 2 West. Then this Thursday we had weekly
planning, Halloween on Friday, a Ward Party on Saturday, and Church on
Sunday. Even with all of the craziness that went on this week, I feel we
had a lot of success this week.

Recently we
have had a lot of troubles finding our investigators home because they
have been working so much and when they aren't working, they are busy
with other things. Nevertheless, we still got to contact almost all of
them this week. We found out more about their schedules and we got to
set up appointments for this coming week. Meanwhile, we have been trying
to find new investigators more and trying to improve our contacting. We
had some success with that because we got some good referrals from the
English missionaries in our area, and we stressed contacting them the
next day! We taught the mother of a family of 9 kids from age 15 and
down, we had set a lesson for Sunday. We were able to bring up our
success in finding the family at Ward Correlation, and our other
successes this week, and they got really excited! We had four lessons
set up for later in the day (Sunday), and we were able to set up members
for each of them. We then continued with our day Sunday and sadly,
nobody we tried was home, and the member set up for 8pm had to cancel
suddenly at about 6. We just kept going forward with faith that there
was something that we needed to do, and we were able to catch one
investigator family at home, this being the first contact we have been
able to have with them all transfer. We were able to find out what their
new schedule was like, and we have plans to see them Friday. We then
went to talk with a potential that we found at the beginning of the
transfer with Elder Williams, and he was home! We found out that he is
finishing up on the job that has been making him have no time and we
were able to set up an appointment with him for this next week as well.
After talking with him, we went to one of the families that we tried to
take a member to, they had gotten home, and we were able to set up a
lesson with them for 8pm today. After talking with them, we went over to
a family that wasn't home on Saturday when we had our appointment, and
they were home as well! We had the intention of stopping by and setting a
time to come back, but they invited us to come and sit down, and they
got out their Book of Mormon, and wanted us to teach them. We were
completely fine with that! I felt like I needed to start out by asking
them about if they remembered/understood where the Book of Mormon came
from, which they didn't. We realized last week that our first lesson
with them wasn't exactly the best lesson, there were too many
distractions, so they didn't understand everything we taught, but this
time we were able to explain things clearly and they expressed a lot of
questions and uncertainty about the Plan of Salvation, all of which are
answered through the Book of Mormon. We had the wonderful opportunity to
testify of these truths and leave them chapters to answer their
questions. We had no idea that they were so prepared! We met them by a
lesson falling through before, and now we got to teach them specifically
how these things can apply to them because of lessons falling through.
It is weird to see how the Lord makes some things happen in order for
other, unplanned things of greater importance to happen.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

This week was just full of miracles. We are
still working on building up the area, but on Friday we had interviews with
President Drake, where he told me to start praying more specifically to
have my righteous desires be brought forth in the area. I have been
doing that, and we started seeing results immediately! Heavenly Father is there, always, just waiting on us to ask/pray for the right things that will help us most, and he always delivers (ie. blesses us)!

20 October 2014

We
went out after P-Day, sadly getting out a little late, so we headed
straight to dinner with Mark, one of our members, where we ate quickly,
so we would have enough time to ride the 15 minutes to our appointment
with Suyapa and Jorge, the part-member family. We had scheduled a member to be with us, but he had to cancel. This whole time I was praying
that they would be home because we really needed/wanted to talk with
them. I was also praying that we would get there on time and know what
we needed to say. When we got there, well, they weren't home...

It
was already about 8:00 pm, but we wanted to stay near-by, just in case
they showed up. We noticed that one of their neighbor families was
outside cooking on their grill and having a good time, probably a family
party, so we decided to say hi and just talk with them a little. They
told us their names, Alma and Gumaro, and ended up inviting us to eat
with them and wouldn't take no for an answer, so we sat down and just
had a good normal conversation, that ended up turning to the topic of
religion. We started talking about what makes our church different, and
they seemed interested when we said that we know that God has called a
prophet to guide us in these days. We ended up talking to them about how
they can know for themselves, and about how the Book of Mormon is the
key to that. We gave them a Book of Mormon, invited them to read from
the introduction, and we asked them when we could come back. They told
us that Saturday is when they wouldn't have work, so it would be fine to come
then.

By the time we left it was already about
9:10, and as we were getting up to go, when Suyapa called us to see
where we went because our bikes were still outside their home. We
accidentally missed the call, but right when the phone stopped ringing,
we saw them getting out of their truck, so we called to them and talked
briefly. They invited us in, but we explained that it was late, so we
set up an appointment for Wednesday.

We were
so blessed to go there and find them not home. We found a new family, and we
still got to reschedule the appointment (which we were able to with them and teach the lesson that we had planned), but I realize that we wouldn't have
been able to meet Alma and Gumaro had the 'planned schedule' been fulfilled.

24 October 2014

Had interviews with President Drake, but they took a little longer than we
thought we would, so we were running late getting to our area. We had an
appointment set at 4:30 pm, but it was already 4:15 and we were barely
getting home (and we still had to change and go on the 30 minute bike
ride there). We left with faith that it would all go well, and we prayed
that we would be able to at least set another time to come back if we
weren't able to teach her then.

On the way out,
we were biking really fast and while riding, I remembered the scripture
that it is not right for God's elders (missionaries) to be moving
quickly while the people beside us are dying from unbelief. I realized
that we should still talk to people on the way, since there was no way for us
to be on time. So I repented and prayed that God would put some people
in our way that He has prepared for the gospel while we were riding. We
saw some people holding a garage sale and we pulled over and looked at
some of the stuff to make it less awkward, then we started talking to
them. They asked what we were going around doing and we obviously
answered that we were missionaries and how we bring a message to the
world that God has once again called a prophet to teach the truth. They
were interested, so we talked a little more about it and gave them cards
to receive the evidence that God has given of this event, The Book of
Mormon. One of them said that he knew this was from God and that God had
sent us to tell them these things (which really made us think that he
was a member), but he said that he would make sure they called the number
on the card to receive a free copy. After that, we thanked them for
their time and went on our way.

Soon after that
first encounter with people, we passed by these two guys that looked
like they were in their early twenties, and I felt like we should stop
and talk with them. I sadly passed by them, but I decided that it would be the right thing to do to go back to talk with them even if it seemed ackward for me. We went over and one
of them was gone, but we talked with the other. We told him that we were
missionaries and a little about our message, then he told us that he
was just visiting his cousin, who lives in this area, but he would be
willing to listen to missionaries. We ended up just giving him a card
for himself and one for his cousin, and he said he was going to call the
number on the card as well.

I
never realized how powerful prayer truly can be. President Drake had
said that as long as our will is in line with the will of God, whatever
we pray for will come to pass, but only if we act in a way to make it
come to pass. I really look forward to these next weeks and the success
that will come as we pray specifically for the people in our area.

This
week went pretty well, we still had a hard time getting in with
investigators and potentials, so we did a lot of contacting. We also got
a referral for a really prepared woman named Bertha, who is a friend of
a few members and has gone to church multiple times in the past. She
said that she has gone to many different churches, and the one she feels
the most comfortable at, or the best at, is ours. She finally accepted
the offer for a missionary visit from her good friend, who accompanied
us to the lesson. Bertha is very much prepared to receive the gospel,
and we are hoping, and praying, that she will accept the message and that
all of the family problems that are occurring will be fixed. Other than
her, we had the opportunity to finally catch a couple of the less-active
members that we haven't seen in a while, so we did have a good week
despite any difficulties in having lessons to teach. We
also found out that our investigator, Jorge, is really wanting to be
baptized. He has been working towards getting everything in line to get
married, and we helped him realize what he needed to do to be baptized.
Finding out how much he wanted this gospel made me realize that I am
helping people and that there is success in this area.

This
week I took a step back and I made sure I was trying to not stress
myself out for what I can't control. I realized that I was stressing
about me "not doing enough" to have the people act on the message. I
realized that I am doing my part by teaching simply and with the spirit
and inviting. Those on the receiving end have to make the decision themselves that they
want to act. I have also been really working on studying more
effectively so I can actually use it throughout the day. As part of my
studies, I have been also taking some time to read out of the Missionary
Library to strengthen my testimony and to grow my knowledge.

About Me

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and have made my decision to serve my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for 2 years before heading to college. I've been called to serve a Spanish speaking mission in Houston Texas, and am excited to be able to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Though I've always been a member of this church, it was my choice to serve a mission. I'm excited to bring the plan of happiness to others, and help them to heighten their joys here on earth, and in the eternities to come.